Allegiant Air will make Providence its newest destination, announcing plans to launch three new routes there this fall.

Allegiant’s first Providence flights will begin Sept. 28 with non-stop service to Punta Gorda in southwest Florida. Service to St. Petersburg, Fla., starts Oct. 27, while non-stops to Cincinnati begin Nov. 17. The airline will fly two flights a week on all three routes.

For Providence, the arrival of Allegiant is the latest in an impressive run of new service.

Allegiant becomes the second “ultra low-cost” carrier (ULCC) to announce service to the airport in two weeks. Frontier Airlines, another of the USA’s three big ULCCs, said on May 24 that it would add two routes from Providence (to Denver and Orlando) starting Aug. 14.

Providence also is about to get several new international routes on Norwegian Air. The European budget airline starts flying from Providence next week with non-stop service to Scotland, the first of five European routes it is adding there. The carrier will add two other routes to the French Caribbean this fall.

Back to Allegiant, Providence will become the company’s third destination in New England, joining Bangor, Maine, and Portsmouth, N.H.

“We’re thrilled to announce that we are bringing our unique brand of ultra-low-cost, convenient travel to Providence,” Lukas Johnson, Allegiant’s SVP of commercial, says in a statement. “We know that New England travelers are eager to have a convenient, non-stop connection to these great destinations at a fare that everyone can afford.”

Allegiant also flies to two airports in New York state (Newburgh and Plattsburgh) that have passenger “catchment areas” that extend into New England.

Allegiant is one of the USA's three big "ULCCs"along with Frontier and Spirit. Those carriers operate a bare-bones business model in which they charge rock-bottom base fares but charge extra for virtually everything beyond a spot on the plane.

With its unusual wingtip fuel tanks and easily visible swooping red stripe, one of Boeing's T33 chase planes rockets out of Boeing Field in Seattle on Feb. 6, 2016, for a test flight.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren for USA TODAY